The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main means of delivering a letter; senders can be necessitated to create their mail to your Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It is at 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, with a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to test out the newest system.
The success of the experiment resulted in yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is to date no universal pillar box design in which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, and it is at 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the original included the addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, this area ended up being be for sale by 50 percent sizes; a more substantial and wider size for highly populated areas, plus a smaller version for check here elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to receive universal acclaim. It was contrary to the backdrop of these criticism the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not only a huge success therefore, an additional design came in 1879. This final design could be the one that we're accustomed to today. It was two years ahead of this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the most well-liked colour option was green in order to blend in with all the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that this structures were to tough to locate this can camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for 10 years.
For the people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to some delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.